• Alternative UCITS inflows in 1Q 2013: +7.3 Euro billion, Single managers; +24 Euro million, Fund of funds
• 96.1 Euro billion of total assets under management monitored, up from 82.4 Euro billion at end of December;
• Fixed income is responsible for the growth of the sector: +4.9 Euro billion of inflows in 1Q 2013, (+5.9 billion in 2012);

Alternative UCITS funds continue to grow and registered the best inflows into the sector since its birth: +7.3 Euro billion of fresh new money. According to the new MondoAlternative quarterly report, daily funds gathered the most in the first quarter, +6.1 Euro billion, compared to +4 Euro billion in the entire 2012, thus representing the 81.9% of the sector. Global asset managers (defined as companies managing hedge funds and other types of investments) continue to run, being responsible for over 7 Euro billion of inflows in the first quarter. Hedge fund boutiques (companies managing exclusively hedge fund strategies) registered inflows in the first quarter (+256 Euro million) after a difficult fourth quarter in 2012. Their market share in terms of assets is reducing to 18.5%.

Stefano Gaspari, CEO at MondoAlternative says: “Concerning the flows in the alternative UCITS sector, the first quarter of 2013 was exceptionally good, and the winning strategy, as also in 2012, has been Fixed income absolute return, thanks to inflows equal to 4.8 Euro billion. The second strategy, as far as concerns asset raising in first quarter 2013, was the Credit long/short strategy (+889 Euro million), followed by the Long/short equity strategy (+627 Euro million)”.

“The success of the sector and the interest that alternative UCITS funds is having, both from the side of investors and from the one of asset managers, is also proven by the number of investment houses managing over 1 Euro billion in EU regulated mutual hedge funds, that are now 21 and manage 62.7 Euro billion, the 67.2% of the entire industry”.

“As far as concerns performances, it was really a good quarter, with alternative UCITS raising 1.44% in aggregate (according to the MA-EURIZON Ucits Alternative Global Index, equal weighted), Long/short equity products being the winners thanks to a growth of +3.82% on a equal weighed basis, +4.55% asset weighted (MA-EURIZON Ucits Alternative Long/Short Equity Index), thus overtaking LIBOR (+0.04% in the 1Q 2013) by a great extent”.

Focus on the Italian market

At the end of March, of the 499 alternative UCITS funds monitored by MondoAlternative, 337 are authorized for sale in Italy.

In Italy, 21 Asset management companies manage 37 single manager products and 9 funds of alternative UCITS funds, for a total AUM equal to 3.4 Euro billion, quite the same number as at the end of 2012.

According to an exclusive survey by MondoAlternative, alternative UCITS funds are commercialized in Italy through a network of 180 banks, including retail and private banks, and 28 financial advisory companies. In particular, among banks, Banca Ifigest, via its mutual funds supermarket named Fundstore, leads the ranking with 52 asset management companies distributed, out of the 70 surveyed (74.3% of the sample), followed by IW Bank with 40 investment companies (57.1%) and Santander Private Banking with 32 different family of products, equal to the 45.7% of the alternative UCITS funds market. Instead, the main financial advisory company who sells the largest number of alternative UCITS funds is Online Sim, distributing absolute UCITS products of 38 European asset management companies (54.3% of the participants). Another important player, Allfunds Bank, markets in Italy, the 59% of the alternative UCITS funds that have been authorized for sale by Consob, thanks to its open architecture platform and its appointed sub-distributors (i.e. others Italian banks of financial advisory companies).

MondoAlternative, who has born from the ten-year experience of MondoHedge, is the first and only Italian multimedia provider of financial information entirely dedicated on alternative investments.
www.mondoalternative.com